Plastic materials oftentimes have surfaces that create problems in further processing steps or during the use employing such plastic materials. Thus, for instance, the bonding of a plastic or other synthetic material to solid surfaces such as metal surfaces by applying adhesives between the synthetic material and the solid surface and bringing the two surfaces into contact with each other oftentimes does not result in a sufficiently strong band. For many plastic materials, pretreatments of various kinds have been proposed to increase the bonding strength of such adhesive bonds.
In other fields, the surfaces of many plastic materials have a luster and the surface is not water-wettable. For some applications it is desirable that the plastic surface does not have a luster or, in other words, that the plastic surface is rendered dull. For other purposes, e.g. in the process of plating plastic materials with, e.g.. metals, it is desirable that the plastic surface is water-wettable.